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ostensibly with the object of ascertaining public opinion, but really to overawe it. He was so hopelessly out of touch with the new spirit that his own reactionary policy had helped to foster, that he thought that his presence would serve to bring the leaders of East Bengal round to his views. He was greatly mistaken. At Mymen- singh he was the guest of the Maharaja Surya Kanto Acharya. Among the Zemindars of Bengal there never was a finer or a stron- ger personality. He received Lord Curzon with all the honours of princely hospitality; but he told him with quiet and dignified firm- ness that he would regard the Partition of Bengal as a grave disaster, and that he was opposed to it; and throughout he remained a prominent leader of the anti-Partition agitation.

It was in the course of this tour that the scheme of Partition underwent a further expansion. It was now proposed, and for the first time, to include the whole of North Bengal and the districts of Faridpore and Barisal in East Bengal, in the new and expanded project.

The revised scheme was conceived in secret, discussed in secret, and settled in secret, without the slightest hint to the public. The idea of submitting it to a representative conference was no longer followed. 'The final scheme' said Lord Morley from his place in Parliament, was never submitted to the judgment of anybody in Bengal.' And why not? What became of that pretended deference to public opinion, of the solicitude to consult it, so conspicuous in the early stages of the discussion, when the East Bengal leaders were invited to conferences at 'Belvedere' under the presidency of the Lieutenant-Governor?

The truth is that there never was any real desire to defer to public opinion and abide by its decision. Lord Curzon and Sir Andrew Fraser had hoped to persuade the leaders to acquiesce in their views; when they failed, they set public opinion at defiance, but not with the inborn courage of real statesmanship. For the scheme, as finally settled, was embodied in a secret despatch of which the public knew nothing. Indeed, so complete was the lull after Lord Curzon's visit to East Bengal and before the storm actually burst, that the idea gained ground that the project of a partition had been abandoned. Had we the faintest idea of what had been secretly decided, a deputation would have gone to England along with the despatch, with a view to procuring the annulment of its recommendations. I would have gladly joined such a deputation.